


he holds me in his arms, it's no good

by biconburr



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Canon Compliant, Child Marriage, Consent Issues, Divorce, Domestic Violence, F/M, Infidelity, Internalized Misogyny, Mental Health Issues, Non-Linear Narrative, Period-Typical Sexism, Suicidal Thoughts, Teen Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-14 22:09:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20608133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biconburr/pseuds/biconburr
Summary: Snapshots from Maria Lewis' life.





	he holds me in his arms, it's no good

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'american tradition' by nicole dollanganger.
> 
> fills the 'perspective flip' square in my trope bingo card.
> 
> i'm REALLy sad over maria today and i managed to write hamilton fanfic for the first time in a while for her, whoops.
> 
> enjoy! please take care, this fic is quite heavy!

When Maria meets Alexander Hamilton, her first impression is that he’s kind.

Of course, anyone else would’ve seen Alexander Hamilton was scraping the barrel of kind men, and that her impression of that was based on the fact that his first instinct wasn’t to hit her or to scream at her.

But still. She’s dressed up for the ocasion, red dress that makes him look at her that way, that way that reminds her of who she is, really— a woman, an object, a thing for men to gawk at. And that’s what James is using her for, extorting men out of money for the right to sleep with her all while their wives are blissfully unaware of their infidelity. It’s happened before, it’s raked in quite a bit of money for her husband, but it has never been a government official.

She never complains. Hamilton pushess her against the wall. Hamilton kisses her hungry, vicious, like a starved animal who just saw defenseless prey and he’s not walking back down until he devours it. Hamilton rips her soul to shreds and he’s desperate, moaning as he makes of her whatever he wll. She never complains, making use of her great ability to zone out as he does. She still whimpers, still wriggles underneath him, not saying a word except a plea. If it’s for more or for him to stop, she’s not so sure.

*******

She is fifteen and her mother is hugging her tight.

“We have to do this,” she comforts, over and over, desperate for her to believe her. She still doesn’t. “We have to do this, Maria. You’ll understand, I promise.”

“I understand, mama,” she lies, her head swimming. 

The man is taller than her, menacing, with a smile that makes her sick to her stomach. His name is James, James Reynolds. He is not a rich man, not exactly— he manages to get a lot of money from the government, even as they still deal with the after-effects of the war. With the way he looks at her, she doesn’t dare ask specifics. She doesn’t dare to ask anything at all.

Their wedding is a quiet affair, only a few witnesses (who are all her family and one of James’ friends, a man with a wicked grin who puts his hand on her shoulder during it all). They kiss and he grips her hips tight and she has that sinking feeling in her gut that her life will not be good under this man. Not with this man, no. She’s fifteen, born 1768 and he’s a veteran from their war. She doesn’t know how old he is precisely, but she knows the difference is all the greater. 

“I suppose girls of your kind,” he starts, sneering a little, because oh, her family is not well-off, her family gave him to her— “they’re not good with keeping their legs closed, aren’t they?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, laying down on his bed, staring up at the ceiling.

He grunts and he’s on top of her.

He’s smiling at her the same way Alexander Hamilton would kiss her years later— like a starved animal.

*******

“Just give him what he wants and then you can have me—”

She wants him. She wants him, yes, she does, as much as it doesn’t sound right in her head. She needs him. He’s not all that better from any man she’s known, but at least he is better than her husband. He doesn’t hit her, and every single afterglow is rather… quiet. Kind, even.

He always holds her afterward, breathing hard for a few moments before he straightens up like nothing happened.

“How much will it be this time around?” he asks, playful, like they’re playing a little card game, like the odds aren’t his wife finding out, her getting beaten black and blue. Like the stakes are so little and so few. This is just a game for Hamilton.

“I don’t know,” she says, fiddling as she puts her clothes back on. “Probably forty. Or, or something.”

“Okay,” he nods, leaning in to kiss her. She pulls away a little, avoiding it, and there’s that flash of anger in his eyes that makes her shrink on herself. That masculine anger that swallows her whole, pushes her down to the floor and makes her beg for him to be merciful this time around.

She swallows thickly and leans in to kiss him, a quick peck on the lips that doesn’t devolve into anything more. Hamilton smiles at her afterward, tilting his head, eyes sparkling with something. Perhaps lust. Perhaps affection. Perhaps nothing that matters, not in this situation, no.

But she’s never been of the smart kind— most women aren’t. She only sees what she wants to see. The affection in his deep brown eyes she can get from them if she squints.

She thinks she might be in love with the way he holds her.

*******

“You’re pregnant,” James tells her matter-of-factly.

She knows that. She’s aware of the fact that there’s a baby in her womb. She’s aware that she prays every night for that baby to be a boy, so he doesn’t go through what she does. So that he doesn’t wish to not have been born. So that he’s fine, so that he’s functional, so that he’s not married to a man twice his age like she is.

She can wish and wish and wish, but it all comes down to the same— she’s going to have a baby. If it’s a daughter, well, it’s terrifying. What will James do? Get her pregnant again until he gets a nice, powerful son? What will she do then?

It’s been about two years since their wedding and every day feels like picking at a healing wound.

“I am,” she agrees.

“It better be a boy,” he snarls.

She goes silent. “It better,” she agrees once again.

She wishes she was never born. She wishes her baby is never born if she’s a girl. If he’s a boy, well, maybe things would turn out alright for him.

*******

“Your daughter is beautiful,” Mr. Burr tells her.

She forces a smile, taking up her baby in her arms. She’s eight. “Thank you.”

Mr. Burr takes another bite of his food, looks back at his wife before looking at her once again. “So, about your divorce from Mr. James Reynolds… would you care to show me the bruises once again?”

She swallows. As much as Mr. Burr is a decent man (far more decent than any other man she has the displeasure of connecting intimately with— which is not what Mr. Burr seems to be interested in while they deal with her divorce, thank God)... he’s still a man. He’s fixated on what she’s gone through, the bruises along her far too skinny frame, about the details of how exactly she was abused.

She understands it, in theory. He’s a lawyer and it’s his case, but she still knows what his small smile means, the way his fingers brush against her own when he thinks she’s not paying attention.

She rolls her sleeves up. There are the blue-purple bruises, the last ones she got before she was discarded. Maybe James is just going to go for the next fifteen-year-old to take, not even caring if legally they are still married.

“God,” he breathes, almost revering as he pulls his eyes away from her.

Mrs. Burr is smiling at her tightly, that pain they always seem to share in silence as she bounces her baby, Susan, on her lap. She heard she used to be married to a British officer— she wonders how terrible that must’ve been, but she can’t bring herself to ask her that. 

She stays silent as she picks at the food the Burrs served her.

*******

She’s a blank slate for Alexander to talk onto.

He rambles about something or other about the government as she stays on his bed, not minding the way his mouth works fast and without any seeming stop. It’s better than getting screamed at. She’s taking scraps, yes, she knows, but it’s hard not to take scraps gratefully when you’re a starving animal such as Maria Reynolds.

“You know what I’m talking about, right?” he asks with a grin as he finally, finally looks at her.

“Yeah,” she nods. She doesn’t know all the technical terms Alexander uses as he monologues, no, but she understands what he’s saying in the simplest terms.

Alexander scoffs, rolls his eyes. “Oh, you don’t,” he says with that air of certainty that he always carries around himself, but the dismissive nature of it makes it worse. You’re a woman, he says, of course you don’t know anything about how our nation works. “Lemme just keep talking, okay? I need to get this shit out of my head. So, we’ve got Jefferson…”

*******

When the pamphlet is released, Maria becomes the country’s embarrassment. 

How dare a girl ruin such a marriage? She was lying about her husband’s abuse, obviously, just to get into Hamilton’s bed! She was just a whore, it wasn’t Hamilton’s fault that he fell into that temptress’ spell, really. How dare she seduce him so? How dare she comply to her husband’s complaints just to live another day more?

She doesn’t think she’ll survive this. 

Even as her second husband watches her carelessly, she still thinks that, perhaps, she should hang herself. She should get rid of this country’s worst whore, their country’s worst embarassment. That young slut that came into Hamilton’s place and seduced him until he paid her ex-husband to keep seeing her without the word going out. 

She doesn’t. She doesn’t give in. as much as she would like to. She follows her husband to Britain, she watches him as he becomes worse, becomes better— she can’t tell the difference sometimes.

In Britain, no one knows who she is. No one scoffs at her as she walks down the street. No one screams at her for having the nerve to exist.

In Britain, she knows what it’s like to not be under Hamilton. She knows what it’s like not to be under James.

She’s still underneath, but she can live with it like this. She can learn to live with it.

**Author's Note:**

> please comment and/or kudo if you liked it! :)


End file.
